


The Test

by AvengersCompound (emilyevanston)



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Clint Barton Bingo 2019, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Marvel 616 References, Missing Scene, Pregnancy Scares, Showers, mentions of past Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/AvengersCompound
Summary: When Natasha wakes up feeling nauseated, she and Clint had to face the possibility that she might be pregnant.  With the newness of their relationship and the fact that the Red Room has made it impossible for her to carry a baby to term, the three minutes it takes for the test to work are the longest of their lives.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56
Collections: Clint Barton Bingo





	The Test

**Author's Note:**

> **Square filled:** @clintbartonbingo - G1 Missing Scene
> 
>  **A/N:** After Natasha showed up in Rocket Raccoon with two of Clint’s kids I’ve been thinking about a story about how that happened considering in 616 Natasha can’t carry kids to term. Now with Katie Barton showing up too, this story of finding out Nat was pregnant came to me.

Natasha woke completely engulfed in Clint’s arms. That’s how it had been since she’d started her relationship back up with the archer. It was like he was worried that during the night she’d disappear on him again and realize they weren’t meant to be together. Not that she could blame him for that. Their history was anything but smooth sailing but even at their worst, she had loved Clint Barton. He was her best friend. The only person who looked at her and saw the potential for what she could be despite her past, rather than a limited version of herself because of it. There were often times she didn’t think she could live up to the image Clint had her, but god damn if she didn’t want to when he looked at her the way he did. Even when he was married to someone else, or she was dating someone else, he never looked at her with anything other than the eyes of someone who truly believed in her.

They had always felt inevitable, but timing or their own messed up bullshit had gotten in the way. This … this felt different. Permanent. Home. She just hoped they didn’t mess things up again.

As much as she wanted to stay, wrapped in his well-toned arms, the bathroom called her. She slipped out of his embrace, pushing a pillow into his arms as he reached out to the once occupied space. She knew it wouldn’t keep him asleep for long but it would buy her some time in the shower alone before he hopped in behind her and it became about anything but getting clean.

She used the bathroom and hopped under the warm stream of the shower, letting it wash over her. It was a rare day where she didn’t need to be somewhere doing something. It was nice to be able to just enjoy it. She grabbed the shampoo and squeezed some into her palm. Something about the scent triggered her gag reflex. She dry heaved as she rinsed the soap from her hand, and staggered out of the shower, dropping to her knees and throwing up into the toilet.

Clint appeared behind her and pulled her hair back behind her head. “Are you okay, Nat?”

“No,” Natasha said, throwing up again as he rubbed her back. When her stomach finally seemed to settle, she sat back and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Pizdets. That came out of nowhere. I can’t even remember the last time I threw up.”

Clint helped her to her feet. “Maybe it was something you ate. Those shrimp tacos from that dodgy-looking food truck?”

“You had three times as many as me,” Natasha argued as she got into the shower. She used the water from the showerhead to rinse the taste of sick out of her mouth. “Why aren’t you sick?”

Clint stripped off his clothes and took out his hearing aids, putting them on the top of the medicine cabinet. He climbed in behind her and circled his arms around her. “Because I’m a manly man and you’re just a tiny girl.”

Natasha elbowed him. Hard. It made his foot slip out from under him and he pinwheeled his arms trying not to fall before Natasha caught him again. ‘Are you trying to make me kill you?’ she signed.

“Yeah, I was regretting that as the words were leaving my mouth.” He said a little too loudly.

Natasha let out a breath and leaned her head against his shoulder. She wondered if it was the tacos. She’d been feeling a little off for weeks now. Achy and ill. Like she was getting the flu. She stood back and looked up at Clint. ‘Maybe it wasn’t the tacos. Maybe I’m getting sick,’ she signed.

“Can you even get sick?” He asked.

She shrugged and turned away from him. Honestly, she didn’t think so. While the serum she had was flawed compared to Steve’s it had always kept her healthy. Maybe it had started to run its course now. Or maybe whatever she caught had been designed specifically to attack super-soldiers.

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Clint teased, running his hands up Natasha’s sides. “Let me see.” He cupped her breasts and seemed to bounce them in his palms like he was trying to weigh them. “They do feel bigger.”

Natasha scowled and wheeled around on him as she tried to mentally count back to when she’d last had her period. She had never been great with birth control. The hormonal stuff worked for a little while and then the serum would start adjusting for it, and her body physically rejected any kind of implant. So there was just the barrier kind, and she’d remember that most of the time until things got comfortable. Normally it didn’t matter. The serum had made it hard for her to conceive anyway. But not impossible. “Don’t even joke about that!” She snapped, not even bothering to sign it, and trusting he got the tone in her voice by lip-reading alone.

“What?” Clint asked, a genuine look of confusion on his face. It was hard to keep her fear and anger directed at him. Besides, as far as he knew she was just infertile because of the Red Room. He didn’t know the dirty details.

She huffed, jumped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and dashed to the bedroom. She grabbed her phone and started going through her calendar to work out exactly how late she was. Clint appeared in the doorway, still dripping water, with a towel wrapped low on his hips as he put his hearing-aids back in. “What did I say, Nat?”

“Pregnant, Clint!” Natasha shouted. “I think I’m pregnant!”

Clint just stared at her with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. “What? What? What do you mean, Nat? You said you couldn’t?”

She dropped her gaze. “No,” she said. “I can. I have been before.”

“What?” Clint said. “Nat! You said! I would have been more careful!”

“I know, Clint!” She cursed under her breath. Just a string of random nonsensical swearing in various different languages, including Latin.

While Natasha was trying to figure out how exactly to explain to him how she’d fucked up, Clint’s face seemed to go through a whole emotional journey. Like he was experiencing the five stages of grief all at once but instead of settling on acceptance, he settled on a hopeful optimism. He moved to Natasha quickly and kneeled on the ground in front of her.

“But this is good,” Clint said, taking her hands in his. “Nat, if you are… you get to be a mom like you wanted. That’s good isn’t it?”

Natasha felt a very unfamiliar sensation in her eyes. Was she about to cry? Was Clint’s hopeful little puppy face about getting to have kids with her going to make her cry? She rubbed her eyes in frustration and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Clint.”

“Is it me? You don’t want to have kids with me?” He dropped his hands and flopped back onto his butt. Lucky seemed to sense something was up with his favorite human being and he padded over and flopped down directly in Clint’s lap. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? I’m a fucking mess. I’m sorry, Nat. If you… I dunno… want to …” He shook his head and shrugged. “…alone. Or whatever.”

“Oh, you idiot bird,” Natasha said, kneeling on the ground in front of him and cradling his jaw. “I love you so much. Of course, I would want to have kids with you. If anyone it would be you. It was always you.”

“Then what is it, Nat?” Clint asked. “Shouldn’t you be excited?”

“There are so many things, Clint,” she said, looking down again. “We’ve only just gotten back together. Our lives. But most of all…” She stopped and let out a shuddering breath. Clint looked at her with both fear and hope written all over his features and she was about to break his heart, the same way hers broke every time she thought about this. “Clint, it’s not that I can’t get pregnant. I can’t carry to term. The serum makes the pregnancies non-viable.”

“Oh,” Clint said. The sound almost like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Oh,” he repeated. He leaned forward pressing his forehead against hers. “Has this happened before?”

Natasha sucked in air suddenly and two tears escaped her eyes. She turned her head away from him. He couldn’t see her weak like this. She couldn’t be weak like this. Not in front of Clint. Not when he looked at her like the way he did.

He reacted quickly, shoving Lucky off his lap and pulling her into it. His hands bunched in her hair and he kissed her. The kiss was everything she needed it to be. Strong and reassuring. Loving and tender. She knew exactly what he was thinking as he kissed her. It was going to be okay. Whatever happened, good or bad, they were together and it was going to be okay.

When he broke the kiss he kept her wrapped tightly in his arms. “Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves, Nat. When was the last time you had your … you know?”

Natasha pulled back from him and got back up, retying the towel around her. “My period?” She asked, and Clint nodded enthusiastically. “Good god, Clint. You want to have a baby with me and you can’t even say the word period? What if this works and it’s a girl, and I die, and you have to tell her about periods?”

Clint started laughing as he got up. “That is really getting ahead of yourself, Nat,” Clint said and when the scowl didn’t leave her face, he shook his head and looked into her eyes. “If we do end up having a daughter together, I promise I’ll practice saying period.” He sat down on the side of the bed and patted the space beside him. Natasha moved up next to him and put her head on his shoulder. “But when was it?”

“I’m not sure exactly. It tends to be erratic. They really did a number on my reproductive system. But I’d say around two months ago. Give or take a couple of weeks.”

Clint patted her leg and got up and started pulling on the dirty clothes he had scattered around the room. “I’ll go buy some tests. Okay? Then we’ll know and we can work out what to do from there.”

Natasha watched as he hurriedly got dressed and Lucky seemed to be determined to try and trip him over. “Clint?” She said quietly.

“Yeah, Nat?” He said as he pulled on his shoe.

“You’d be a good father, you know?” She said.

Clint came over and kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Nat. You’d be a great mom.”

“I’m really scared.” She whispered.

“That’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s scary.”

She caressed his cheek with her thumb and flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll be right back.” He said and whistled for Lucky. The mutt trotted after him as he headed out the door.

* * *

Natasha was still lying staring at the ceiling when Clint burst back through the door. She hadn’t moved at all since he’d left. She had just stayed lying there, wrapped in her towel with her legs hanging over the end of the bed. The only difference between when Clint left and when he arrived was Liho was now curled up on her chest.

“Nat?” He said softly. “Are you dead?”

“I wish I was dead.” She replied.

He sat down beside her and gave Liho a scratch on the head. “I got you some presents. Look.”

She sat up, putting a disgruntled Liho on her pillow, and looked in the plastic CVS bag he was holding open. Inside was some Hershey’s Kisses, a Pez Dispenser in the shape of Ariel from the Little Mermaid, a bottle of strawberry lemonade, a small remote-controlled car, and the pregnancy tests.

“You bought all this for me?” Natasha asked, looking up into the blue of Clint’s eyes.

Clint nodded and kissed her forehead. Her eyes glistened with tears again and Clint’s heart ached for her. He knew how she felt about looking this weak, even in front of him. He wished he knew the right words to say to make her realize she could do this.

“I love you, dummy.” She whispered.

“I love you too, Nat.”

Natasha sighed and pulled out the tests. “I better do this then.”

Clint sat on the edge of the bed and waited for Natasha to come back out of the bathroom. He pulled the remote-controlled car from the box and set it up. When Natasha returned, she sat down next to him and put the tester on the bedside table. Clint handed her the car’s remote.

“What do we do if it’s positive?” Natasha asked. Her voice was hollow like she had lost the ability to emote over this anymore. She started driving the car and immediately hit the dresser, knocking one of the wheels out of alignment. Clint got up and picked it up. He grabbed the multi-tool he kept on the dresser for when he wanted to mess around with his custom arrowheads and came and sat back down while he attempted to fix the small car.

“I don’t know, Nat,” he said, frowning. “What do you want to do?”

“I just -” she let out a breath and leaned over to watch what Clint was doing. He wasn’t entirely sure himself, but he’d taken off the whole base and was trying to straighten up the wheel. “I hate how the Red Room still has this control over me. I want to be a mother. And I can’t imagine anyone else being the person I have kids with except you. But they’ve taken that from me. This will just go like it did last time. I’ll get excited about it. Start buying baby things. And one day I’ll wake up in a huge pool of blood and it will be gone. I can’t go through that again, Clint. It’ll destroy me.”

Clint put the car back together and put it on the ground without saying anything. Natasha pressed on the controls and the car did a donut and spun off under the bed. Lucky barked at it and crouched with his head under the bed, his tail wagging like a helicopter blade. “I’ve been through that too, you know?”

Natasha turned her head to face him. “What?”

Clint nodded and fiddled with his fingers. “Bobbi. It wasn’t planned. Like now. But damn if we weren’t excited about it. She didn’t make it very far into it before we lost it, so we never told anyone it happened. Didn’t want the sad looks and asking if we were over it yet. It hurt. Bad. But you move on. There’s not a lot of choice. Whatever happens, if you want to try to go ahead with it, I’ll be here. If you do end up losing it. I’ll be here. If you really think you can’t go ahead with the pregnancy… for whatever reason… I’ll be here, Nat.”

Natasha rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. “What if it does work out? I want to be a mother more than anything, but are we really ready for that, Clint? How would that even work? What if all that happens is we end up breaking up and raising this kid who just hates us for never being there because there’s always Avengers stuff?”

Clint shrugged and reached under the bed. He pulled the car back out and took the control from Natasha and started to drive the car in figures of eight around the bedroom floor while Lucky both chased it and ran from it. “Now? Later? What difference does it make, Nat? We’ll never be ready. Not really. But I love you and I want… all of that with you. We can work it out. Even when we weren’t together, it’s always been you and me.”

Natasha put her foot out and the car banged into it. Lucky pounced on it and flipped it onto it’s back. They both started laughing and Clint pulled Natasha into his arms.

“We’ve never talked about any of this before. Family. Children. Not even marriage. You married Bobbi but you never even brought that up with me.” Natasha said.

“Bobbi asked me,” Clint said. “In fact, Bobbi asked me, took me to Vegas and booked a cabin in the mountains with a spa, so we were married and on our honeymoon within a week of her saying she even liked me like that. The first day I met you, I was in love with you. I would have married you right then and there. But I know you, Nat. That’s never been you. You want to get married?”

You smiled and nosed at his cheek. “Maybe. To you.” She let out a sigh and wrapped her arm around his waist. “I hate the can still hurt me. I’ve been away from them for years and they can still make me cry. I don’t cry, Clint.”

“I know, Nat.” He said gently. “You’re my strong and emotionless girlfriend who I love very much.”

“Has it been long enough?” Natasha asked.

Clint picked up the test and looked at it. There were two indicator windows, a really small one with a single vertical line running through it and a much larger one that had what looked like a big bright pink plus. His heart skipped and for a second he forgot how to breathe. Positive. The test was positive. Natasha was pregnant and maybe she’d end up losing it, but right now she was pregnant with his baby and he was the happiest he had ever been in his entire life.

“Positive.” He said, keeping his voice neutral, in the hope that how happy he felt wouldn’t put pressure on her to do something she didn’t want to.

Natasha looked up at him and slowly her face broke in a smile. “We’re parents, Clint.”

Clint grinned and leaned in and kissed her, cradling her jaw in his large hands. Maybe it would go the way it had for both of them in the past. Maybe they’d have to work through their grief together in the broken, fucked up way they both dealt with things like that. But right now, at this very moment, they were parents and nothing, not even the Red Room could take that from them.


End file.
